50,000 BlackBerry PlayBook Tablets Sold On Launch Day Says Analyst

Research in Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook may have sold more tablets on day one than its closest rival, the Motorola XOOM, according to preliminary analysis of sale figures from one Canadian analyst firm.

RBC Capital Markets, which is the investment arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, says that one in every nine retail stores probed in North America said that they had sold out of their PlayBook stock on the opening day.

These include Future Shop, Sears, Staples and Best Buy, with the latter saying that most of its 180 stores selling the tablet had run out of stock already.

Another analyst, Peter Misek, who works for Jeffries & Co, issued a note on Wednesday saying, "While the launch of the Playbook is not attracting overnight crowds, pre-order sales and in-store demand in major cities has been solid; however, AT&T's prohibition of free tethering is an unexpected negative."

He reckons that RIM has sold 25,000 PlayBook tablets through pre-orders taken online with an additional 20,000 being sold through retail outlets which adds up to 45,000 units.

The BlackBerry PlayBook was panned by many reviewers, some said that it is an unfinished product, but even if the sales estimates of the RIM tablet are only one sixth of the iPad 2, it would still be a great result for the Canadian device maker; whether it can keep up the momentum is another debate altogether.